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tv   Special Report With Bret Baier  FOX News  December 6, 2013 3:00pm-4:01pm PST

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>> it would never, ever happen to a republican. >> sure, it would. >> now, don't forget to set your dvr so you never, ever, ever miss an episode of "the five." have a great weekend. "special report" is next. this time the president singling out government bureaucracy. that and much more on this "special report." good evening. i'm bret baier. earlier, president obama urged graduates to reject those voices warning government was the root of all problems. given that, it might come as a surprise that government is not a savior but not his latest scapegoat, because his signature legislation is not yet working. ed henry has our lead story tonight.
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>> reporter: after weeks of his aides saying there would be no monday morning quarterbacking of the botched rollout, president obama seemed to go further in an msnbc interview, blaming government bureaucracy. >> the challenge, i think, that we have going forward is not so much my personal management style or particular issues around the white house organization. it actually has to do what i referred to earlier, which is we have these big agencies. some of which are outdated. some of which are not designed properly. >> reporter: the president did note there needed to be better controls in place on healthcare.gov. >> my question is, is he passing the buck? >> oh, no, no, no. the president believes very strongly we ought to be functioning effectively at all levels of the government on behalf of the taxpayers. >> reporter: republicaned
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released more e-mails charging the administration knew as early as august the exchange for small businesses would have to be delayed. but did not reveal a problem until late september. fred upton declaring -- >> reporter: administration officials note the e-mails are between a small group of aides and do not reflect the decisions of higher level officials. and white house aides believe they've had one of their best weeks in terms of improving the website and getting more people enrolled. though when asked if they turned the corner, carney was cautious. >> i think we're making progress but we're not there. >> reporter: hedging, because there are still problems. in fact, "the wall street journal" reports some states are refusing to enroll new people into medicaid, because of incomplete data from the federal site. potentially a major problem
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since the low enrollment numbers have been beefed up by a large share of medicaid recipients signing up. republicans are vowing all these questions will be front and center next week when kathleen sebelius is back in the hotseat. and harry reid is pushing back on reports that he and -- he noted when he signed up, his health costs went up $4500. they say the error rate has been coming down. they think this has been a good week. we'll see next week. >> ed, thank you. ton employment rate hit a five-year low of 7%, an encouraging sign for the u.s. economy. the job creation news sent stocks soaring today, a rare sign. the dow added 199. the s&p 500 gained 20. the nasdaq finished ahead 29.
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for the week, the dow lost 0.4 of a percentage of a point. to break down the jobs report for us is melissa francis in new york. she's the most of "money with melissa francis" on the fox business network. the jobs number better than expected. still not robust, but pretty good? >> absolutely. it was better than expected. most economists were looking for less than 200,000 jobs, 203,000 is what came through. 7% unemployment. that is the 60th straight month we have seen employment over 7%. if you look at the average amount of money earned per hour, the number of hours worked per week, those ticked up slightly. and the participation rate is so important. last month it was at a 35-year low. it has ticked up, but just slightly. 63% of people out there consider themselves part of the workforce, either working or even looking for a job. that means that the rest of the
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population has given up and they don't want to work at all. so not a great number. >> the president talks about this income inequality, and it's really growing, the divide between rich and poor. >> absolutely. and the data supports that. if you look at the median income, what the average person is earning, that has fallen five years in a row. the top 5%, the wealthy, that has risen, and they've made up everything that was lost in this recession. that median income, though, is 8% below where it was at its lowest level back to where it was in 1995. so the divide without question is growing. >> i said that it's surprising that the market is up, not that it went up, but the fact that the market actually liked good economic news. that was what was surprising. >> it was one of those goldilocks reports. it was better than expected but
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not fantastic. so a lot of what has driven these gains is the free, easy money, the federal reserve. this $85 billion a month bond buying program. that's been driving the program. so with this, it was good, but it wasn't fantastic. so the fed is likely to keep doing what it's doing into next year. that's a lot of the reason why the market was celebrating. >> and the jobs. there's a lot of talk about minimum wage, and this debate seems to be rolling on. >> that's right. you can't talk about any of this without the backdrop of what we've seen this week. all those protests in front of mcdonald's and everywhere elsewhere people are earning the minimum wage. and you have to remember who we're talking about. that is only 3% of the population. the majority of those folks, 62% are still in school. as we talk about all these things and trying to find a job, as those people protest, you have to remember a lot of economists say 500,000 of those jobs would go away if minimum
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wage went up, where those folks are arguing for it to go. so just something to remember. >> one more thing. there's a couple of caveats here. it's a smaller workforce now, overall. and there are a lot more part time jobs. so those things need to be factored in. >> without question. there has been a structural shift in the economy. a lot of what people consider to be the good jobs, the full-time jobs for people that aren't as skilled or as educated. those have evaporated. those are the people getting left behind. to find them good jobs that have benefits. those are the people getting left behind. and it's hard to see those jobs in the future that those folks go to. that is the structural strange that's taken place during this recession. not a lot of people have a good melissa, thank you.o about it's been more than 24 hours since the announcement that
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nelson mandela died. senior foreign affairs correspondent greg palcot has the story. >> reporter: they lit candles and laid flowers in front of his house in johannesburg. the people of south africa mourned and celebrated the father of their country, 95-year-old nelson mandela. >> the world today is lesser without him. >> reporter: the first black president of south africa was praised by the current holder of the office. >> we will always love madiba for teaching us, to overcome hatred and anger in order to build a new nation and a new society. >> reporter: and this from the last president to preside over
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the hated apartheid system. >> he was a great man. he was a very special man. i think his greatest legacy to south africa and to the world is the emphasis which he has always put on the need for reconciliation. >> reporter: at the new york stock exchange, there was a moment of silence. at the u.n. general assembly, diplomats paused. former u.n. secretary-general kofi annan caused nelson mandela a courageous voice. the uk prime minister called him a hero of all-time, as a predecessor stressed his practicality. >> he understood politics. this is something important to stress. i always thought he was a very shrewd politician. >> reporter: the body of mandela was transported to a military morgue. there will be a national day of
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prayer on sunday. a memorial at a huge soccer stadium on tuesday. and buried the following sunday in his home village. in attendance will be president obama and first lady michelle obama. former president george bush and laura and former president clinton and hillary. clinton sat down today and recalled mandela's long years in prison. >> i said, tell me how this changed you. how did you give up 27 of the best years of your life and come out a better than than you went in. he said i realized they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. those things i would have to give them. he said, i decided not to give them away. >> reporter: all told, there are ten days of national mourning for the late nelson mandela. considering the emotions we're seeing, that might not be enough. >> greg, thank you. much of the u.s. is facing
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down right wintry blast with frigid temps, ice and snow. several deaths have been reported, most resulting from treacherous driving conditions. hundreds of flights have been canceled. the national weather service issued ice warnings for at least eight states. the temperature in parts of north dakota, as you see here, registered a few degrees below zero. but the windchill pushed it to nearly 40 below. up next, the battle for the soul of the democratic party. but first, here's what some of our fox affiliates across the country are covering. in san diego, they're looking at a study that shows it only costs about $1.50 per more to eat healthy food. in tampa, the story of two teenagers charged in a string of burglaries, but there is a twist. police say parents of one of the
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suspects saw their son on the tv and called the police on him. this is a live look at st. louis from our affiliate there. the big story there tonight, storm cleanup. some locations in that area got as much as 10 inches of snow. that's tonight's live look outside the beltway, from "special report." we'll be right back. [ paper rustles, outdoor sounds ] ♪ [ male announcer ] laura's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today her doctor has her on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doct before you begin an aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. [ m'm... ] great taste. [ tapping ] soundsood. campbell's healthy request. m'm! m'm! good.®
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you may be familiar with the buckley rule. nominate the most conservative candidate who is electable. as chief political correspondent carl cameron reports, there are many democrats who say their party needs to adopt a corollary rule. nominate the most liberal candidate or risk losing
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relevance. >> reporter: unemployment has finally dipped, but wall street got a big bailout. most bush tax cuts remain and much of the obama agenda is stalled. progressives blame the president and weak party leadership. >> democrats didn't push hard enough to create an agenda that would put america back to work, rebuild our infrastructure, get us out of the wars, and to take us in a new direction on trade and push for civil liberties. >> reporter: but the think tank known as third wave ripped into far left economic pop ulists, warning in a hard-hitting op-ed that, nothing would be more disastrous for democrats. the political problems of liberal populism are bad enough. the movement relies on a, we can have it all fantasy. when the tea party pushed the gop right, democrats lost the house majority in the biggest
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blowout in 50 years. a coalition of 54 blue dog democrats saw their ranks decimated by more than half then, and they're down to 15 now. blue dogs were all the rage in the '90s. president clinton declared the era of big government over, the economy was strong and budget was balanced. >> growing the private economy is the prerequisite for being a party of opportunity. that's something that democrats cannot afford to forget. >> reporter: evan bayh is a centrist and former governor from indiana. >> i think you're going to see a more liberal wing of the democratic party. you may see them playing the same role in democratic primary contests that the tea party has played on the republican side. which then will lead to less electable nominees. >> reporter: it's clear
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establishment democrats will face similar pressure from the left. hillary clinton may face the most as the democratic front-runner now. she in 2008 ran to the right of mr. obama. a president who is now seep as not liberal enough by the party base. brett? >> carl, thank you. a relationship that's seep it all is entering a new phase. fox news media analyst and host of fox's media buzz howard curts on president obama and former secretary of state hillary clinton. >> they begin as bitter rivals for the presidency. >> shame on you, barack obama. >> you're likable enough. >> thank you so much. >> by the time hillary clinton stepped down as secretary of state, the president was arranging a mutual love fest on "60 minutes." >> how would you characterize your relationship right now? >> i consider hillary a strong friend. >> very warm, close. >> but that very warm relationship has entered a new
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and trickier phase. he needs her to provide cover on issues such as the obama care mess, even if that means occasional potshots from her husband, who insisted this week he is clueless about her intentions. >> is she running or do you know if she's running? >> no clue. i don't. she believes and i believe that the four-year cam papaign mania a big mistake. >> republican strategists are saying that hillary clinton is the life raft on obama's sinking shift. obama's troops would be a lot less likely to abandon ship if she wasn't around. it's not easy to succeed a president of your own party, as long-time clintoned adviser tel me. in a way hillary clinton and
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barack obama are still circling each other. the president needs to keep her on the political reservation. she needs to hold on to his base, while running as a different kind of democrat. brett? >> thanks. still ahead, the trust busting ftc goes after your piano teacher? we'll explain. first, can house and senate budget leaders find common ground before another possible government shutdown. we'll be right back. wee aig. and we're here. to help secure retirements and protect financial futures. to help communities recover and rebuild. for companies going from garage to global. on the ground, in the air, even into space. we repaid every dollar america lent us. and gave america back a profit. we're here to keep our promises. to help you realize a better tomorrow. from the families of aig, happy holidays.
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and our giant idaho potato truck is still missing. so my dog and i we're going to go find it. it's out there somewhere spreading the good word about idaho potatoes and raising money for meals on wheels. but we'd really like our truck back, so if you see it, let us know, would you? thanks. what?
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let's take a deal, or not. as time ticks down to another possible government shut down, house and senate budget gurus are trying to work out a compromise. mike emanuel looks at how likely
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that is and what else lawmakers have on their to-do list. [ sounds of crickets ] >> reporter: senators have been gone before thanksgiving. lawmakers set a friday the 13th deadline for a one-year budget plan that would increaae next year's scheduled $967 billion spending cap, topping the $1 trillion mark. if there's no deal in five weeks, the government shuts down again. >> i'm hopeful they'll be able to work this out. but there's clearly no agreement. >> reporter: the white house is also cautious at this point. >> on the issue of a budget agreement, i would say that we hope and expect that they can reach one. but i don't want to characterize the progress. >> reporter: defense cuts would be reduced by $17 billion. democrats would get $17 billion cut in education and research
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programs. with $1 trillion spending program being crafted, fiscal conservatives have concerns. there's no guarantee it will pass. the senate returns to town next week. both holidays and weekends, there are only five workdays left before the end of the year in which both the house and senate will be in session together. boehner signaled the calendar is set. >> i made it clear that the house is going to leave next friday, and you all know me pretty well, i say what i mean. >> reporter: beyond the budget, two critical bills need to get past. a defense authorization measure, and a farm bill stalled for months over a food stamp dispute, which if not solved, dairy subsidies will expire and milk prices could spike. >> we must extend this insurance before the end of the year and extend it for at least a year.
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>> reporter: since the great recession five years ago, unemployment benefits have been extended times, totalling $226 billion. democrats feel like they have leverage here. if conservatives bail on a budget deal, heavy democratic support will be needed, so they want unemployment benefits in the mix. >> mike, thank you. do you foresee another government shutdown or do you think the house and senate will come together on a budget deal? let me know on facebook.com or on twitter. the cvc confirms a link between tainted tap water at the u.s. marine corps base in north carolina between 1968 and 1985 at camp lejeune to mothers who drank the water while pregnant were more times more likely to have serious birth defects.
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wait until you hear how many times president obama met face to face with a cabinet member in charge of rolling out obama care. the grapevine is next. [ male announcer ] introducing red lober's seafood bakes. combinations of your favorite seafood from lobster to crab, shrimp and mussels in a savory broth. try one today, and sea food differently. now, try seven lunch choices at $7.99. sandwiches, sads and more. now, try seven lunch choices at $7.99. hoo-hoo...hoo-hoo. hoo-hoo hoo.
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and now some fresh pickings from the political grapevine.
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a friday full of follows today. yesterday, we reported the about face by the white house in admitting that its statement that president obama had never met his uncle, who recently walls allowed to stay in the u.s. despite a deportation order, was false. the white house said the mixup happened because no one asked the president about his relationship with his uncle. today, a lack of meetings has raised questions about the administration. the government accountability institute released an analysis of the presidential meetings with cabinet secretary since obama care was signed into law. according to that report, president obama did not meet with kathleen sebelius, the secretary of hhs, the secretary in charge of implementing obama care a single time. white house secretary jay carney questioned the accuracy of the report because it only looked at the public schedule. >> cabinet secretaries don't regularly get entered into the
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visitor's log because they come frequently. and she meets frequently with the president. >> she will be on capitol hill next week to face questions about obama care struggles. remember the official stamp of the statue of liberty that wasn't actually lady liberty? the postal service used a picture of a statue of lady liberty instead of the original. the sculptor of the sin city version is suing the usps for copyright infringement. more than 5 million copies of the forever stamp were printed. finally, note to costco, nonfiction does not neep not true. last month, the shopping giant was in hot water for labeling bibles as fiction, which costco blamed on its distributor. according to "the los angeles
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times," ron burgundy's memoir was labeled as nonfiction. will farrell did host a news show in character in north dakota recently. a note, we invited him to sit on the panel for a segment. but so far scheduling has not worked out. the federal trade commission's mission statement says it exists to prevent anti-competitive practices that hurt consumers. the ftc were created to bust the trust. we show you how one wrong note by a group of music teachers earned the agency's wrath. ♪ >> reporter: catherine stuart may look like a violin teacher to her, but according to the ftc, she is a threat to america's consumers. >> outrageous as far as i'm concerned. >> reporter: last march, the ftc
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sent notice that the association was under notice for anti-competitive practices. >> it came out of the blue. we have no idea how it started. >> reporter: at issue, part of the code of ethics that says teachers should not recruit students from other teachers. >> it ensures teachers get along well. >> reporter: it's not a high-dollar operation. >> we're musicians. >> reporter: the ftc required them to reach back 17 years for all records of its bylaws, codes, journals, finances and membership. >> it's hard to understand the motivation for what they're trying to do. how are consumers being harmed? this is one in a long line of interventions that are hard to rationalize. >> reporter: winston points to the merger of american airlines and us airways.
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>> the justice department objected to that with no basis. in tend, they tried to save face with a negotiation where the airlines save up slots at airports. >> reporter: a former head of the ftc's anti-trust division sold fox news it's common for the ftc to investigate price fixing. they have removed the offending passage from its ethics code. brett? >> doug, thank you. if you've not participated in our poll, go to our home page foxnews.com/specialreport. you can provide real feedback, monitor what the panelists are saying and you essentially have a seat at the panel. you can access the pulse on your smartphone or tablet by going to bing.com/politics. we'll talk with you about the latest with obama care, the president's interview with chris
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matthews, and all the latest with the fox all-stars when we come back. [ male announcer ] they are a glowing example of what it means to the best. and at this special time of year, they shine even brighter. come to the winter event and get the merces-benz you've always wished for, now for an exceptional price. [ santa ] ho, ho, ho, ho! [ male announcer ] lease e 2014 e350 for $579 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer.
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yes, i have a strong chief of staff, but i want to have strong interactions with them directly. number two is i have an open door policy where i want people to be bringing me bad news on time so that we can fix things and that, you know, the challenge, i think, that we have going forward is not so much my personal management style or particular issues around white house organizations, it has to do with what i referred to earlier, which is we have these big agencies. some of which are outdated. some of which are not designed properly. >> president obama on msnbc
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talking about his management style. we brought you that story about the study, saying how many times president obama met one on one with the hhs secretary, the hhs department of health and human services has responded with this quote. secretary sebelius has been to the white house countless times since becoming secretary. he's frequently at the house for meetings related to the implementation of the affordable care act, including dozens with the president in the last year alone. with that, let's bring in our panel. steve hayes, amy stoder, and charles krauthammer. steve, the president saying he holds every cabinet member accountable. >> that's clearly not true, as we've seen. he hasn't fired virtually nibble. i'm a little skeptical of the report that he only met with
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secretary sebelius once. when i was doing research for a book, you can find that those logs respe s aren't always accu. but what we know is that obama carolout he rollout has been a disaster. the one other thing i found interesting in that interview with chris matthews is the president's claim in the interview that the american media, divide and splinter was the quote he used. divide and splinter the american public. think about that for a second. he said this to chris matthews who, today said in an interview with al sharpton, that mitch mcconnell compares unfavorably to pro apartheid south african leaders and barack obama complained to chris matthews that the media is doing that.
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i think that was ironic. >> amy? >> well, i think the media has been pretty tough on president obama's rollout of the health care law, and i think the question last night that matthews posed to him, his level of management control and ultimate accountability was the right question, i just don't think obama really answered it. it doesn't matter how many times he met with kathleen sebelius, he didn't meet with her enough, obviously. if he was hands on, he would have learned earlier on that this was an enormous task, that the people assigned to it were not up to. and it was ultimately not prepared to be launched on october 1. there were other indications that before october 1, he says he doesn't know about that. either way, whether you know and you're trying to hide it later or you didn't know, that is a failure of leadership. >> what about this whole thing
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that his take, charles, that government is not good at certain things and we're looking to consolidate some agencies and yet his administration, when describing the success that they're having now, says that the we believe site is operating at private sector velocity. >> and this is after he's argued for basically half a decade now in office that government is the font of american enterprise and success. it's amazing that right now in the beginning or middle of his second term, he says there's a real problem here with the big agencies. some of which are outdated and not designed properly. so he discovers this three years after he decided to pass a bill that would consign 1/6 of the u.s. economy, into the hands of precisely an outdated and
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improperly designed bureaucracy, ie, hhs. it's interesting how he discovering everything late. a month ago in the press conference he held where he apologized, sort of, he said he hadn't quite realized how hard it is to purchase health insurance. this is, of course, after --ars nationalizes the purchase of health insurance. this reminds me of a time when after -- remember he said he discovered a no-shovel ready jobs. he discovers that after he passes $1 trillion on the argument that there are all these shovel ready jobs. it's as if he discovers everything late. as if he wandered into the white house on a white house tour and discovered himself in the oval office as president. >> he's asked about working with republican congress, and this is his answer. >> in our history, usually when
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we've made big progress on issues, it's been when one party controlled the government for a period of time. the big strides we made in the new deal and made with the great society, those were times where you had a big majority. and when ronald reagan made changes in the direction of a more republican agenda, is it when he had a majority. >> maybe he took office with a democratic house and democratic senate. >> it was interesting he mentioned reagan's republican agenda, but he didn't mention the health care legislation as great strides made under one party rule. i think he's, you know, adequately humble about how much it's failed but i don't think he's being realistic about a, his hand in the failures in the last final months before the launch. i think that talking about the
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website still frustrates me, because i think there are these people out there who i would like to call the false positives who believe that they've gone and set up shopping accounts and they've perused their choices and they've enrolled. enrollment is the word that they continue to use. but what if you think that you have insurance, if there's no system built at the back end to pay the insurers, what if you get in an accident on december 29th and you get in there and you think you've got obama care. and you've been enrolled and you're not insured. this is something they refuse to acknowledge. these people may not be insured. >> and they say it's the back end issue, as if it's a complicated -- the bureaucratic arcain element. you pay a premium and you get insured. in the absence of it, you are not. a lot of people will discover that january 1 and won't be very
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happy. >> is he pushing for one-party role? >> i thought it was something of an acknowledgement how much trouble his agenda is in the rest of his second term. he talked about ronald reagan and said he was his model. he had two years to do this in the beginning of his administration. now you have a house full of republicans who have been elected to thwart his agenda. that's what they're doing and doing it effectively. >> reagan never had control of the house in his entire eight years and he enacted his agenda. obama has the same situation and he's complaining he needs control of everything. next up, friday lightning round. that's correct. cause i'm really nervous about getting trapped. why's that? uh, mark? go get help! i have my reasons. look, you don't have to feel trapped with our raise your rate cd.
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jobs, 203,000 jobs added. november unemployment numbers there. the job force is smaller overall. panel, charles? >> well, at least it's one time when the drop is not a direct result of people leaving the workforce. so it's a good report. it does show that after five years that we're starting to get some kind of progress. now, we also had a good gdp report which was quite high. but the problem is, there's a lot of inventory in that, which leads the experts to assume that the next quarter will be a lot less. but this could be the beginning of a real decrease in unemployment. once you get the imaginic number six in there, i think it's going to help democrats a lot next year. >> and the fact that the markets
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like it, and i do think, look, we can all say that long-term unemployment and underemployment are still making this nation, most people in this country really struggle. until we get past that and hiring happens in a much quicker pace, it's going to be slow, but it's the right direction. a five-year low is a five-year low, and that's good news. >> look, charles is always going out of his way to give the administration credit, to put a positive spin on this -- >> i know. >> -- for the administration. he did it once again here tonight. look, it's -- >> what do you expect from a mondale speech writer? >> that's exactly what i mean. [ laughter ] might have trouble getting back together with that. >> i just wanted to steal your line there. lightning, people, lightning, people. it's not directly attributed to a drop in labor force participation, but if you take the longer view and put it in context, over the past year, the entire shrinkage is due to the labor, the drop in the labor force participation rate, and if we had the same participation rate today that we had a year
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ago, we would be at 8%. so, this is good news only in the context of an obama economy that isn't doing well. >> the "boston globe" had a story about the president's uncle who faced a deportation hearing, 2011. the white house said that the president had never met him. yesterday, jay carney, white house press secretary, said this. >> back when this arose, folks looked at the record, including the president's book, and there was no evidence that they had met. and that was what was conveyed. nobody spoke to the president. when pomar obama said the other day, and there were reports that he had said the other day that president obama, back when he was a law school student, had stayed with him in cambridge, i thought it was the right thing to do to go ask him. nobody had asked him in the past, and the president said, in fact, he had met omar obama when he moved to cambridge for law school and he stayed with him
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for a brief period of time until the president's apartment was ready. after that, they saw each other once every few months while the president was in cambridge, and then after law school, they gradually fell out of touch. >> why wouldn't you ask the president in the first place? in 2011 when you told the world a falsehood, and you said, we scoured the book, and he wasn't in there, so, we concluded he didn't know him. that's the oddest response i've ever heard. i think -- well, i am not going to speculate, but clearly, this administration has trouble finding the truth and saying it. and if you don't ask the principal, you're not going to get the truth, and they know that. >> a drunk driving incident ahead of an election, 2011. >> right, that's the problem, is everyone's families are filled with, you know, are fraught are tension and strain ties. when you become the president of the united states, you are held to a different standard and more scrutiny, and if there is a potential news story about a blood relative, people are
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supposed to ask you and they're supposed to be honest with the media about it, and it's just hard to pretend that that line of -- that protocol of just looking up something, some intern looking at a book and not having it go to the top is really strange. >> and then issue a declarative statement that he had never met -- >> yeah. this is the problem. either they lied repeatedly, or best-case scenario for the white house, they didn't do their due diligence and this is how they treat these kinds of issues. when reporters come to them and ask them questions about other issues, is this the kind of way that they treat this? it's terrible. >> okay, that's it for the panel. let's stay tuned for some sights and sounds from a special christmas tradition here in the nation's capital. a little more fun. plus, sr thin pulse highlights. honestly, i'm not looking for five-star treatment.
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tonight's "bing poll highlights," strong disagreements in a clip of president obama discussing his open door policy for taking care of bad news, but all parties
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agreed with steve when he said the president has not fired anyone over the obama care rollout. he hasn't. more agreement now from both men and women. one ab said, no matter how much obama met with secretary sebelius, it was obviously not enough. and it must be friday, because everyone's agreeing with the panel tonight. high agreement from men and women, when charles said the rollout mess made it look like president obama was on a white house tour and just discovered he was president. they liked that one. total votes tonight, 164,000. finally tonight, president obama just a few minutes ago flipped the switch on the national christmas tree at, well, let's see, about an hour ago this evening. >> five, four, three, two, one! >> whoo! >> the ceremony dates back to 1923 and takes place rain or shine. everyone in high spirits, despite the dreary weather in
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the nation's capital. the night ceremony included a star-studded lineup with performances from aretha franklin and mariah carey. the first lady was greeting with abby cadabby. it was fun, fair balanced. breaking news tonight. the federal obama care website is now seeing a 10% failure rate. good evening, everybody. i'm martha maccallum in tonight for greta van susteren. so, today they admitted that healthcare.gov is seeing errors in one out of every ten data transfers, after the so-called fixes they put in. so, how worried should you be about whether or not you really got the coverage that you were able to sign up for? congressm congressman, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> that's a big number, one in ten seeing errors, and that's after they said they were experiencing that private sector velocity, right? >> i mean,